I was pleased to see today that there has been a further relaxation in public sector pay restraints, to allow rises above inflation for various groups of employees.
• Teachers – the average classroom teacher will see a 2.75 per cent pay increase, worth on average £1,000.
• Armed Forces – a soldier at Corporal level on average wages will see a 2.9 per cent raise worth £995, while the starting salary for an officer will rise by £769.
• NHS – Doctors and dentists will receive an increase of 2.5 per cent, with hospital doctors seeing an average £1,500 more to their salary. Nurses are seeing a pay increase of 6.5 per cent over three years, as agreed as part of a 3-year deal in 2018.
• Police – police constables will see a 2.5 per cent average pay increase, earning up to £978 more this year.
• Prison officers – prison officers will get at least a 2.2 per cent rise this year, with many receiving 3 per cent.
July 23, 2019
Every penny spent on these pay rises is money that won’t be spent on the services themselves or yet more tax which we will all have to pay.
The purpose of public services is to serve the public Not being forever giving pay rises to the people who work there.
The worst aspect of this latest spending binge however is the fact that these pay rises are pensionable and will mean that yet higher public sector pension will be paid to these people long after they’ve stopped working for the service at all.
It’s not uncommon now for any public sector worker to retire with million pound and sometimes multi million pound pension pots whereas the private sector has abandoned these profligate final salary pension schemes almost entirely.
We are now not far off the day where every penny we pay in Council Tax will be going on paying out pensions to people who no longer work there.
It’s estimated that for 2018-19 £13.3 billion more was paid out in public sector pensions than was received in contributions. That’s a smiler figure to our EU Net Contribution. And this at time when when the national debt is astronomic, the budget deficit is rising and we have full employment.
The best they can do is stop any further pay rises counting for pension purposes.
July 23, 2019
That will be £1,000 to teachers plus the protected pension rights and NI payments that have caused the IFS claimed 8% real terms reduction in funding. All as well as incremental annual increases as they move up the pay spine.
Teachers are a valuable resource educating our children but spare us the sainthood claims.
Public sector workers are no more or less valuable than any other worker. We all provide service but outside the public sector we have to raise our own funding without the threat of prison.